Despite the extra chow I’d been having, the leather jacket was actually a little too big for me now. When I got out of the army, I was infantry, you know. I weighed well over two hundred pounds because all I did was eat and work out. I had a different mentality about food then. Way back then, I ate at the chow hall, and I was into meat in large portions and milk in large quantities. Now, I eat for taste and nutrition, and I weigh less, and as I was not trying to put on weight, there was no way I was going to have room for dessert. I guess in a way the salad was my desert. I like caesar's dressing and lettuce and especially artichokes, and the girlfriend left me some of all of them.
After she gave me the rest of her salad, she ordered the flan. By the time she got the flan, I had finished the salad off. It was then that I decided to take a bathroom break. That same little bathroom—the one located in the short corridor between the bar and the restaurant, the one I had been in earlier—was very close, so I put my coat on and headed there.
I can attest to three facts. First, that bathroom seemed even smaller now that I had the jacket on. Second, the smell of asparagus had already manifested itself by the time I went to the bathroom. And third, when I left the bathroom, I peeked into the lounge bar area and saw the most stunning woman I had ever laid eyes on.
She was sitting at the bar, alone. She had on a tight thin dress, it was tan, and her legs were on display. She had muscular albeit soft legs. She was showing off those legs, so it wasn’t my fault that I noticed them right away.
She looked at me as though we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. To this day, I wonder whether I knew her, but every time I ask myself that question, I draw a blank. Maybe she was on a blind date and thought I was the guy she was waiting for, or maybe she just had the hots for me. Maybe it was chemistry. Or maybe we knew each other in college. Maybe she lived near me at some point. I still don’t know. I’m not sure.
She keeps staring at me for what seemed like forever, even after I glanced away and looked back, and then while gazing my way, she takes her little black purse and pulls lipstick from it and redoes her lips. I tore myself away from her and went back to the table.